CNN
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Donald Trump’s six-year federal tax returns, released Friday, show the former president paid very little federal income tax in his first and last years in office, among other revelations. He claims huge losses that helped limit his tax bill.
The long-secret returns were released to the public on Friday by the House Ways and Means Committee. I have confirmed the report issued by the Joint Taxation Commission that it was carried over to eliminate it. For example, his returns show that in 2015 he carried forward losses of $105 million and in 2016 he carried forward losses of $73 million.
The Democratic-run commission has obtained thousands of pages of documents from the former president’s personal and business tax returns from 2015 to 2020. The commission voted last week to release the tax returns. However, the release was delayed due to the redaction of sensitive personal information such as social security numbers.
CNN is currently reviewing tax returns.
The release of tax returns is usually the result of years of tracking documents voluntarily released by past U.S. presidents. Trump and his team of attorneys have maintained that Congress never exercised its legislative power to demand the president’s tax returns and have continued to try to keep his returns secret.
“The Democrats should never have done it, and the Supreme Court should never have approved it. It would be terrifying to so many people,” Trump said in a statement.
“‘Trump’ tax returns show how proud and successful I have been, how I could use depreciation and various other tax credits as an incentive to create thousands of jobs and grand structures and corporations. shows again.”
The Joint Taxation Commission has flagged Mr. Trump for claiming a number of questionable items on his tax returns. Among them are frowning sums that Trump claims he received from loans to his children, which a bipartisan commission said could indicate that he had disguised his gifts. included the interest of
The JCT did not argue that Trump should have paid more or less in taxes in the years it investigated, but auditors said they should investigate the loan agreement Trump made with his children, including the interest rate. For example, if the interest Mr Trump claims to charge his children is not the market rate, it would be considered a gift for tax purposes and would have to pay a higher tax rate on that money.
For example, in 2017, Trump claimed to have received exactly $18,000 in interest on a loan he said he gave to his daughter, Ivanka Trump. He claimed interest of $8,715 from his son Donald Trump Jr. and just $24,000 from his son Eric Trump.
This is because “whether the loan was a bona fide arm’s length transaction or whether the transfer was a disguised gift that could result in disallowance of gift tax and interest deductions by the relevant borrower.” raise an issue.
“The interest in round numbers is unusual, very rare,” said Martin Sheil, a former supervising special agent in the IRS’s Criminal Investigations Division. “Auditors will want to see payments, loan agreements, and interest rates.”
Trump reported having foreign bank accounts between 2015 and 2020, including a Chinese bank account between 2015 and 2017, his tax returns show.
Trump had to report the account to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). The filings show that the former president maintained foreign bank accounts in countries such as the UK, Ireland and China.
Chinese bank accounts reported by The New York Times in 2020 were linked to Trump International Hotels Management’s promotion of operations in the country, Trump Organization attorney Alan Garten said at the time. .
Business deals in China came to light in 2020 as the Trump campaign attempted to portray opponent Joe Biden as a “puppet” of China. Biden’s income tax returns and financial disclosures did not show any business dealings or income from China.
The Commission, which oversees the IRS and is responsible for developing tax policy, required the return under the authority of Section 6103 of the US Tax Code. Their report focused primarily on whether Trump’s tax returns during his tenure were properly audited under his IRS’ mandatory audit program for the President of the United States.
The commission found that the IRS initiated only one “mandatory” audit during Trump’s presidency: the 2016 tax returns. And that didn’t happen until the fall of 2019, after Massachusetts Democrat Speaker Richard Neal first sent his IRS a letter asking for Trump’s returns and tax information. The report characterizes the president’s audit program as “dormant.”
Other Republicans also criticized Democrats’ efforts to pursue tax returns as political, and the committee’s top Conservative, Texas Rep. Kevin Brady, said the release was “far beyond the former president. , said it would be “a dangerous new political weapon that will upend decades of privacy protections for the average American that have existed since Watergate.”
Last week, the House of Representatives passed a bill to reform the president’s audit process before a Republican majority took control of the new Congress. The bill is not expected to be taken up in the Senate before the new Congress is sworn in.
The commission’s report included an analysis of figures from each of six Trump tax returns by the nonpartisan Joint Taxation Commission. Among the JCT findings, the then-president said he paid just $750 in federal income taxes in 2017 and nothing in 2020. The report also showed that Trump paid $1.1 million in federal income taxes in 2018 and 2019 combined. In 2017 he paid $750 and in 2020 he paid $0.
In the years before running for president, a New York Times investigation found that Trump had claimed huge net operating losses, which he was allowed to carry forward and apply to future tax years. was responsibility.
For example, the JCT report notes that Trump carried forward losses of $105 million upon his return in 2015, $73 million in 2016, $45 million in 2017, and $23 million in 2018.
The JCT report also casts doubt on the accuracy of some of the huge charitable deductions Trump claimed on some of his tax returns. A deduction can reduce the amount of income tax you owe.
The newly released tax returns don’t show the full extent of Trump’s net worth or financial dealings, but regardless of where he has foreign bank accounts or whether he paid taxes to foreigners. without knowing the profit and loss of his business. government.
This is breaking news and will be updated.
